Milton Keynes City Council had *almost* all the ingredients for an awesome recruitment function that could do their fantastic organisation justice.
- A modern, exciting employer brand? Tick.
- A high-energy, passionate team? Tick.
- A safe, legal recruitment system? Tick.
But recruitment was still a major pain point. As the team realised: safe and legal are crucial priorities for local government – but they’re the bare minimum.
There was an enormous amount of frustration with a system that, although it did a great job of accommodating their specific needs, was clunky, outmoded, inconsistent, and inflexible.
The candidate experience left a lot to be desired. The manager experience was equally challenging and worse, the recruitment team was struggling to maintain visibility and control to keep everyone safe. Holding the system together became one person’s full-time job.
And because the system had been built in a now-defunct programming language, nobody in the organisation could make changes. So when something needed changing – often, given the speed of statutory change – the team had to add caveat upon caveat upon caveat, creating a labyrinth of outdated info.
In short, it was miserable. For everyone.
There’s just so much to celebrate here now. Our resourcing function makes me so happy and so proud.
RESULTS
- Built a slick, collaborative process that works better for everyone
- Can now consistently showcase their fab brand and voice
- Evidenced 44% B.A.M.E. hires with brill reporting
- Stopped sleepless nights in their tracks by making compliance easy
- Got glowing feedback from all quarters 🌟
- Cut unnecessary faff for candidates with tailored journeys
- Refined and streamlined referencing
- Launched an employee referrals programme
- Fully integrated DBS service
- Can now run LADO checks for all children’s services hires
- In the words of Ofsted, the team have safer recruitment ‘Sewn Up’!
- Created an exciting onboarding experience (not just a compliant one)
- Boosted everyone’s confidence handling change
- The Council’s team got the reins back over their recruitment
